Changes to Tailored Learning for 2025/26 – An Allocation Risk?

In 2024/25 the new Tailored Learning funding model replaced the old Community Learning funding model. With it came a new set of learning aims that replaced the old community learning aims, as well as the non-regulated elements of the old Adult Skills funding model, bringing all non-regulated provision under the same umbrella. There are some differences in how the Department for Education (DfE), and the devolved authorities implemented it but this was the main change.

From an implementation point of view, one of the biggest challenges for providers was the new data requirements for Tailored Learning (TL), particularly around collecting the Tailored Learning outcomes. In 2025/26 more fields become mandatory.

What might these requirements tell us about DfE priorities? 

These fields became mandatory for TL in 2024/25:

• The Tailored Learning purpose (collected at the start of the programme).
• A Tailored Learning outcome (collected when the learner achieved or withdrew).
• The planned hours field to collect planned timetabled hours ⁽¹⁾. 
• Recording Family Learning if the learning was applicable.

The TL Purpose and Outcome fields have received the most attention as they represent the biggest change. The new planned hours requirement was new but is not an additional data burden as providers were already collecting this information.

It is, however, the first time that the DfE have wanted to collect the timetabled hours for a learner at aim level. The DfE guidance on this is that they “expect providers to use the information they provide to learners, for example in a course prospectus or on their websites to complete this field.”⁽²⁾ But they do want to know the actual hours the provider intends to deliver for every Tailored Learning course.

This makes it possible for the DfE to compare the relative TL hours delivered by each provider, potentially allowing them to cross-reference against allocation to look at the relative cost per TL hour delivered.

In 2024/25 the Full Funding Indicator for Tailored Learning was used to indicate if the learner was paying a fee. Co-funding in the TL context meant that the learner was contributing to the costs, and full funding meant that the learner was not contributing to the cost.

In 2025/26 the Full Funding Indicator (FFI) becomes mandatory. It is recorded via three LDM fields rather than by the FFI, in part to capture the new employer contributions. The LDM fields used to record this are:

1. LDM code 399 (no external contribution to cost) should be used where Tailored Learning is fully funded with no external contributions made to the cost of the course.

2. LDM code 400 (Employer contributed to cost) should be used where a contribution to the cost of the provision is made by the employer.

3. LDM code 401 (Learner contributed to cost) should be used where a contribution has been made by the learner. ⁽³⁾

There has always been an expectation that providers would supplement their Community Learning and now Tailored Learning allocations with learner fees through Pound Plus. Now the DFE can effectively monitor if providers are actually doing this via their ILR data. These requirements were published well before the recent DfE announcement of budget cuts of 6% in the non-devolved areas (affecting Adult Skills and Tailored Learning) and cuts of between 2 and 3% for the devolved authorities (Department for Education, 2025)⁽⁴⁾; however, this does not mean that future budgets won’t be weighted to providers seen as more efficient by these metrics.

Using the metrics below it is now much easier for the DfE to compare Provider A with Provider B:

• Comparing the allocation to the planned hours to give a cost per planned hour.
• Comparing the split of fee to non-fee-paying learners across providers to show which providers are making the TL allocation go further.
• Comparing the employer engagement across providers.
• Comparing the number of missing TL Outcomes by provider.

This is only what I think is the possible driver for DfE making these changes but at this stage I would recommend that providers take these data requirements seriously and understand that they could be used for these kinds of comparisons.

Providers need to ensure they are effectively reporting on these areas internally to make informed decisions. We don’t want providers to stop trying to reach the most vulnerable learners, for whom the fees may be a barrier, but they need to be prepared if they are asked to justify these decisions in the future.

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